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Tuesday, June 17, 2003

Thank Goodness for Bureaucracies
Not to obsess over the Ambassdor Hotel, but it seems to be everywhere I turn these days. According to the Daily News, LAUSD superintendent Roy Romer held a press conference Monday to go over the five different scenarios at the site.

The cheapest, at $286 million, would be to raze the property and build new schools. "Maximum reuse," the L.A. Conservancy's favorite option, clocks in at about $382 million. LAUSD will make its decision in October, which hopefully will be enough time for Eli Broad or someone to step in and donate some money to save this classic building.

By the way, there's some irony in all of this. The LAUSD has been dying to build a school on the site for years, keeping the Ambassador property in legal limbo until about two years ago, when it finally took full control of the property. Had LAUSD not stepped in and tried to steal the land from previous owners (which included Donald Trump), the Ambassador probably would have been torn down a long time ago and replaced with a monstrous skyscraper or big-box shopping mall.

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